ASIATIC GREEKS CONQUERED BY CROESUS

The history of the Greeks for many centuries had been
uneventful—a history of their uninterrupted expansion over barbarian lands. But
now the time was approaching when the independent and isolated Greek
communities must meet the attack of the great despotic empires of Asia. The
Greek cities of Asia Minor were the first part of the Hellenic world to be
involved. Their conquest by the Lydian king, Croesus, about the middle of the
sixth century B.C., showed how grave was the danger to Greek independence from
the ambitious designs of Oriental monarchs.

CONQUESTS OF CYRUS AND CAMBYSES

As we have already learned, Croesus himself soon had to
submit to a foreign overlord, in the person of Cyrus the Great. The subjugation
of Lydia and the Greek seaboard by Cyrus extended the Persian Empire to the
Mediterranean. The conquest of Phoenicia and Cyprus by Cambyses added the
Phoenician navy to the resources of the mighty empire. Persia had now become a
sea power, able to cope with the Greeks on their own element. The subjection of
Egypt by the same king led naturally to the annexation of the Greek colonies on
the north African shore. The entire coast of the eastern Mediterranean had now
come under the control of a new, powerful, and hostile state.